Last year, our board member Abby Arnold took the Week Without Driving Challenge and brought along some friends. She's back this year for round 2. You can read last year's entries, and her other work for us, on her author page. Or for this year's series click here and here.
Highway 101 splits Santa Rosa in half from north to south, and Highway 12 splits Santa Rosa in half from east to west. It is the county seat of Sonoma County, and is surrounded by agricultural land uses. The town of Sonoma is located about 20 miles southeast of Santa Rosa. As part of my exploration of the North Bay area during the Week Without Driving, I decided to see how people who don’t drive get to destinations along the Highway 12 corridor, which is served by Sonoma County Transit’s #30 bus.
The 30 stops a half block from my house, so the lack of a bus bench at that stop was not a deterrent as long as I got to the bus stop promptly. The line runs at intervals ranging from 45 to 90 minutes so good timing is essential. (Note to the guerrilla bus bench movement: Montgomery Drive in Santa Rosa could use some benches!) The bus stop is shared by Santa Rosa City Bus and Sonoma County Transit, and I had a moment of confusion when I didn’t notice the County Transit sign on the bus stop pole, but I figured it out and boarded the fairly crowded bus at around 3:10 pm on Thursday October 2. Half the other riders were sleeping; they looked like agricultural or construction workers who had probably started a shift at 6 am. Most of the people who boarded the bus paid with cash or used a transfer rather than a Clipper card or other electronic payment.
When we stopped across from the Rincon Valley Safeway, a passenger boarded with four bags of groceries. The kind bus driver allowed him to bring his groceries on board, but reminded him that passengers are only allowed to bring one bag onto the bus. We proceeded along Highway 12 with beautiful views of misty clouds over vineyards, detouring into a series of neighborhoods in Oakmont, a senior community of about 4,500 residents. I expected that the bus would pick up or drop off housekeepers and caregivers in Oakmont, but we only stopped to let off one active senior and his bicycle.
Leaving Oakmont, the bus crossed the highway and entered into a loop to Los Guilicos Village, an interim housing site that was established during the pandemic when a large encampment of unhoused people was cleared from the Joe Rodota Trail on the other side of Santa Rosa. The passenger with the four bags of groceries got off the bus at Los Guilicos, along with several other bus riders.
The bus then headed through the small wine town of Glen Ellen, where we passed the site of the old Sonoma Developmental Center. This was a residential school and hospital for people with developmental disabilities until its closure in 2018. The site is the focus of a major controversy over its future residential use with some advocating for senior housing, others for permanent supportive housing, or other affordable housing options. Significant NIMBY opposition will tie up any decisions for the foreseeable future, but a bus ride past the site helped shape my opinion that this rural site might be best used for permanent supportive housing for people with disorders that are best managed in a less dense environment.
As we got closer to Sonoma I worried about knowing when to signal the bus driver that I wanted to get off, and discovered that the Apple Maps application on my phone was able to show me the exact bus stop near my destination! I was meeting a friend for an early dinner at Spread, my favorite Lebanese restaurant in what seems to be the low-income section of Sonoma. Several other people got off the bus at my stop, which was directly across the highway from Spread and at what seemed to be the staff entrance to the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa. This was indeed the worker bus, taking people to and from both agricultural fields and hospitality jobs.
My journey ended with a one-block walk to a crosswalk where I could safely cross Highway 12. It was a pleasant ride and I will take it again for lunch, early dinner, or errands in Sonoma. Like most routes in Sonoma County, the last bus is around 6 pm.
*For those of you who are uncomfortable with the term “poor people” I give you my favorite song of this season by the Texas band Shinyribs!
